Needles in the haystack

I know, I know. Blog readers are the savvy applicants who don’t need to be reminded that Admissions Office life gets a bit crazy in January. But because I never know who will stumble over to this page, I might as well continue to share a few reminders.

Yesterday, I answered several emails from applicants who wondered if materials had reached us, and I know that other staffers answered many more such requests. When we can, we’ll try to take the time for a quick search so that we can provide a useful answer, but in the next few days it will become near to impossible — there’s just too much paper around here.

Other Admissions Offices may have systems superior to ours (I doubt it, frankly, but I’ll leave the door open to the possibility), but let’s say that Applicant X calls to ask whether we have received his transcript. Here’s a list of the places where X’s transcript might be:

◊The buckets of unopened mail
◊The pile of opened but unsorted mail
◊The two piles of alphabetically sorted mail — one pile for applicants whose applications are received, and the other for those still in progress (This latter pile is awaiting someone to put everything in a file bin, described next.)
◊The file bins of alphabetically sorted credential items — transcripts, recommendations, interview reports, etc. — waiting for applications
◊A folder containing an as-yet incomplete application
◊A complete-application folder waiting for someone to update the electronic record.

Once the electronic record has been updated, I can check there to see if the transcript has been received, so life is simpler, even if finding the application folder may become trickier. Folders travel a path from box to box, reader to reader, and pile to pile, before ending up in the final decision-related box.

So, Applicant X, and all the other applicants looking for transcripts, recommendations, etc., etc., please bear with us. Searching for a single piece of paper around here is like finding a needle in the not-so-proverbial haystack.